Starting the very next day, I began a new daily routine: I went to school during the day, and then did experiments at the ISRI at night.
I decided to go back to school because I had learned that ignorance was a cardinal sin that could destroy everything. Plus, I was now serious about pursuing imaginary science as a career. If I did, surely I’d be able to help save Shiori. After all my time at the lab over the years, I was primed to absorb knowledge, and my grades swiftly shot back up.
My first parallel shift experiment under the supervision of my dad and the director took place during the winter of my second year of junior high. We had agreed to start with nearby worlds, so I climbed into the powered-on Cradle, closed my eyes, and prayed to go to the parallel world next door.
A few seconds later, I opened my eyes and found myself still inside the Cradle. I could see Dad and the director peering in at me through the glass. Then they opened the door, and I sat up.
“Did it work?” the director asked me, but I didn’t know how to answer. After all, nothing had changed from a few seconds prior. Neighboring parallel worlds had only the most trifling of differences, like what you ate for breakfast. Now that I thought about it, how was I even supposed to make sure I was in another world? Evidently, this conundrum convinced the director to speed up development of the IP bands that could identify which world the wearer was in.
That said, even if I succeeded at shifting, it didn’t mean anything. The neighboring worlds were so similar that their Shioris were all ghosts too. Ultimately, the only thing I gained from that first experiment was the knowledge that nearby worlds were worthless.
✦ ✦ ✦
In the beginning, the experiments happened every two or three months. The adults wouldn’t let me schedule more than that; instead, they kept subjecting me to confusing tests that measured all sorts of numerical values. Since they told me it would further the progress of imaginary science as a whole, I couldn’t possibly decline.
The second parallel shift experiment happened three months after the first. This time I traveled to a world five doors down from ours. But once again, there were barely any changes. I could tell it was a parallel world because everyone was wearing different clothes, but Shiori was still a ghost there.
Just in case, I decided I would speak to this parallel Shiori. I headed to the intersection and sure enough, there she was, wearing the same smile as my Shiori did.
“Oh, Koyomi-kun! Hi!”
But was she the same girl I knew?
“Hi, Shiori. I’m actually from a parallel world.”
“What? Really?”
“Do I seem any different from the me you know?”
“Ummm… I can’t tell. You look the exact same.”
Hearing it put so bluntly was like a punch to the gut, since I liked to think of myself as unique and my parallel selves as totally different guys. That said, I had no right to complain when I couldn’t tell the difference between this Shiori and the one back home. Feeling guilty, I went back to my home world and visited my Shiori next.
“I’m here, Shiori.”
A nearly transparent Shiori smiled back weakly from the crosswalk. “Oh… Koyomi-kun. Thanks for coming. It means a lot.”
She was located just two or three steps away from the street corner, so I always stood at the very edge of the sidewalk to talk to her. That was the spot where she got hit by a car. If only she’d had enough time for two or three more steps, she could have lived.
“I did a parallel shift for the first time in ages yesterday.”
“Yeah? How’d it go?”
“Sorry… I still couldn’t find a way to save you. But I’m gonna find it, I promise. I’m gonna rescue you.”
“I know. Thanks.”
At times like these, it felt like Shiori was really there. But then the lights would change, and the cars would start rolling through her. Once the lights changed again and the pedestrians all walked off, I spoke up once more.
“Has anything changed for you?”
“Well… Ever since yesterday, these two pigeons have started coming by the Leotard Girl. I think they might be mates.”
She acted like nothing was wrong, but I could only imagine how miserable and lonely it was to be trapped in the same spot for eternity. I wished I could live full time at the intersection because the sight of her pained smile as she waved goodbye broke my heart every time.
And so I went to the intersection nearly every day, waited until the street corner was deserted, then spoke to her.
That said, I couldn’t avoid the public eye every single time. And not only that, but bizarrely enough, I was the only one who could actually see Shiori. No one else on the street could see her, not even my dad or the director. Because of that, the passersby all gave me a wide berth like I was crazy. But I didn’t care. Shiori mattered more.
She told me that every now and then, someone would notice her and get spooked. It probably had something to do with whether someone had a “sixth sense” or not. Or maybe it had to do with imaginary density, like with my heightened aptitude for shifting. Regardless, my life now consisted of studying, experimenting, and talking to a ghost.